Which one is your favorite? - LXIV -

Here is a song from "The Beatles". Can they be one of the most covered bands of all time? Well, maybe yes with so many great hits. This one is from their 1968 eponymous double album "The Beatles" (aka White Album).

Here is the song for this week;

"Martha My Dear"

The song is credited to Lennon–McCartney, however, the song was solely written by Paul McCartney about his Old English Sheepdog, Martha, he owned at the time.  According to the book A Hard Day's Write, the song is actually about McCartney's "muse" - the voice in his head that tells him what words and music to write. He did have a dog named Martha but named her after his muse.

A young Stuart Goddard, whose mother used to clean Paul McCartney's apartment in St. John's Wood, would sometimes take the sheepdog Martha for walks. Goddard would grow up to be Adam Ant.

According to Beatles' biographers Ian MacDonald and Mark Lewisohn, "Martha My Dear" is one of the few songs by the band in which solely Paul McCartney played all the instruments (except orchestral instruments played by session musicians), something relatively usual for him at that introspective time during the height of the tensions that marred the sessions for the White Album. Although George Harrison is known to have recorded a small section of the electric guitar in the final recording, he was not credited.

The song was recorded over two days on 4 and 5 October 1968 at Trident Studios in London. McCartney recorded the piano, drums, and vocals on the first day. He was advised to have George Martin play the piano solo because it was believed that the solo was beyond Paul's competency, but Paul persisted. George Martin's brass and string arrangements were overdubbed later that day. The next day, McCartney re-recorded his vocals, added handclaps, and overdubbed bass and guitar parts, completing the song that day.

Here are the 6 versions I picked for you;

• Phish - "Martha My Dear"

• Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - "Martha My Dear"

• St. Vincent - "Martha My Dear"

• Madeleine Peyroux - "Martha My Dear"

• Zélia Duncan - "Martha My Dear"

• Vashti Bunyan & Max Richter - "Martha My Dear"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers.